Shing Sparkle Sparkle
by BandGeek58407
Summary: It wasn't just the pocket protector. Unbeknownst to House, Wilson's geek streak ran deep, and he was about to be outed. H/W friendship. Oneshot.


**Don't ask about the title. It's a long story.**

**Disclaimers: No, I don't own any of the things I mention. Also, any opinions expressed on various aspects of pop culture reflect ONLY the opinions of the characters themselves. **

_**Shing Sparkle Sparkle**_

If any one of the droves of patients that passed through Princeton-Plainsboro knew how often their so very highly-esteemed physicians placed bets—such a nicer way to say "gambled"—that drove would reduce to a mere trickle. Test results, odd skills, patients themselves, nothing was sacred. Foreman once bet that Chase couldn't go without bets for a month, and before Cameron could finish rolling her eyes, Chase had accepted and lost the bet all at the same time. It was the Vicodin of the staff as a whole, and the confines of this potential monetary loss were currently shackled to House's ankle like a ball and chain. But that didn't prevent him from lugging the weight all the way up to Wilson's apartment; in fact, the weight rather dragged him up than pulled him down. Gravity was a fickle force that catered to the bets of Lisa Cuddy and all their you-can't-get-wasted-at-bars-for-two-weeks glory.

So there he was, standing before the oncologist's closed door at ten-thirty on a Friday night. Wilson was probably just drifting off to sleep—all the more reason to go ahead and knock. But then again, the groggy comments that could result in some serious blackmail…no, no. The landlady was just _looking _for an excuse to have House thrown out after that last disturbance. And a-knocking he went; much to his surprise, a non-stumbling, quite lucid Wilson appeared in the doorway not four seconds later. In his surprise, now elevated once he had given Wilson a good looking-over, all the diagnostician could manage was a gaping stare—at least long enough to give his friend reason to glance around shiftily.

"Hello, House," he began, curious with a definite ring of "not again" carved into his expression.

"Sorry. Is this a bad time? I didn't realize you were running late for your cult meeting." Looking away momentarily, House sighed and returned with one of his famous analytical stares that Wilson had become immune to so very long ago, without Cameron's help, even. Oncology: one; immunology: zippo.

Their awkward, everyday staring contest continued, complete with side glances and shifting frowns. "I'm pretty sure I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Oh, come _on_!"

Oh boy: a House whining in disbelief could force even the mildly superstitious into hiding with a barrel of rabbit's feet, for it portended nothing good. However, Wilson, having earned a PhD in House-ism, remained stoic. It was an envied and difficult art.

"Look around!" House pointed about with his cane and Wilson followed the instructions. He looked but didn't see, turning back to the frustrated man with squinting eyes as if to say, "and?".

"Do you need me to spell it out?" House continued in the same manner.

"Please. What was the rule, i before e except after your montages?" This earned a roll of the eyes before any sort of explanation. He peered past Wilson for a moment to reassess things, maybe in hopes that some of this mess would be a hallucination; alas, those hopes were crushed beneath the solid lead hope crusher that always seemed to trail after him.

"Let's see here…" Dramatic pause—this time it was Wilson rolling his eyes. "Fresh bowl of Ramen on the coffee table. Hitchcock's 'The Birds' paused on your TV. Some—" Without warning, he snatched the open novel from Wilson's hands and examined the front and back covers, and hastily, almost as if he'd been burned, tossed it to the floor. "Your masculinity has been brought into question!" He jabbed his cane at the offending paperback, prodding it like a dead rabid squirrel, and only then did Wilson begin to lose his cool.

"House," he said in all seriousness. "I-I just wanted to see what the fuss was all about."

By this time, House had limped into the apartment, running his x-ray vision along any surface he could find. "Well, what _is_ the fuss all about?" Suddenly his gaze fell to a stack of three thick volumes beside Wilson's feet, and with a whispered expletive, the oncologist kicked them under the couch. "Wilson."

"House." Another pause and he raised his eyebrows. "It's just a vampire novel, like Anne Rice—"

"Meant for preteen girls!" At this, House turned his prodding to Wilson's chest despite the younger man's attempts at aversion. "Are you a preteen girl? Doesn't feel like it—"

Finally, after quite a bit of flailing, Wilson was able to slap the cane away. "All right, all right. Are you done yet?"

Few things could scare James Wilson, not horror movies, not creepy bugs, not even most life-or-death situations (he was a doctor, after all). Fear was manageable, something he felt that _one_ time, back _then_, never _recently_. So it took him a couple seconds to recognize the panging twinge in his gut after House smirked.

It was going to be a long night.

"Done?" House said. "Not even close."

All of Wilson's energy was temporarily diverted to not hanging his head and sighing, thereby fueling the diagnostician's satisfaction.

"Where was I?" House asked the ceiling as he started to pace around the living room. "Right. Ramen, Hitchcock, disgrace to the male race"—pausing, he glared almost sarcastically at his friend—"and…hm? What's that coming from the kitchen stereo? Show tunes?" He took a moment to identify the music. "Ah…a saccharine ballad from 'Rent.'"

For the briefest instant, Wilson wanted to argue that House was the one to recognize it; instead he opted for the safer route, simply sighed and insisting, "It's a good musical."

But still he was ignored—House completed his lap around the sofa and stood face to face with the oncologist. "Oh. I almost forgot." Though the following installation of the staring contest lasted a fraction of the time, suspense stretched it out over days. "You're wearing a goddamn SNUGGIE!"

And so he was: the maroon felt covered him completely from his neck to his toes in all its warm-and-cozy goodness, which seriously hampered his ability to feel any bit of shame like House so desired.

"It's comfortable," he said.

"Excuses, excuses, excuses," House muttered, taking another lap around the room. "Is there one giant cult that encompasses all of these vices or do you have to fit five different meetings in your schedule? Means you're probably late to one right now…tell the Grand Master it was my fault and not to flog you…_this _time." Lap two complete, he picked up speed and kept hobbling around the spacious area.

Wilson rubbed his forehead. "Now having passed the stage of sarcastic remarks, Dr. Gregory House will proceed to the analyzing of his subject." He had to admit that his official, I'm-from-National-Geographic narrating voice was becoming mighty spot-on. (Watch out, Morgan Freeman: James Wilson has you beat for "March of the Diagnosticians.")

But as far as nature documentaries go, those being narrated never hear the outside commentary, or they stubbornly disregard it like a certain New Jersey physician. "This sudden inundation makes little sense…" House said to himself. "It's obvious from your office décor that you like Hitchcock and other such things—note the pocket protector—but _this_, oh…_this_ makes it look like you need rehab. So why all at once?"

"Couldn't I have _possibly_ been in the mood for all of them at once?" Wilson said, an edge slowly creeping into his voice.

"It's hard to take you seriously when you're wearing that thing," he dismissed.

"It's warm!"

"It's _August!_" Sighing, he fell back into his monologue. "And it would be difficult to fathom how someone could be in the mood for killer birds, seventeen-cent packs of noodles and the hormone-embittered undead at the same time. Plus show tunes…_totally _different wavelengths…sensory overload." Now on lap five, House abruptly halted, swiveling his head to stare at Wilson, who had taken to his classic hands-on-hips stance. However, the efficacy of said stance was severely undercut by the Snuggie—House almost broke down in hysterics right there. "You _needed_ sensory overload." The only response was another eyebrow raise. "You _needed_ sensory overload because you're upset about something." Cue pacing. Soon they were going to have to start a Nascar league for crippled doctors.

"You…care if I'm upset?"

"And, you being you, this something could be anything." Lap six and he finally collapsed on the center cushion of the sofa, rooting under it blindly and procuring one of the novels Wilson had been so desperately trying to hide. He couldn't help but wrinkle his nose as he pointed to the cover design. "A bloody white rose? Don't you see enough blood at work, young man?" The sarcastic condescension earned him another eye roll—he would have to start a collection.

"You could care less about fads," House continued, tossing the book back to the coffee table with a thud. "Which means you could care less about angst-ridden vampires. Which means you would _never_ read this out of your own free will. Which means you had no choice or you _felt_ you had no choice." As Wilson shuffled to join his friend, House's eyes followed the progress, narrowed, calculating, and hoping very much his assumptions were correct and that therefore he would not have to search the apartment for Hannah Montana paraphernalia. Frankly, that was one thing he didn't think their friendship could withstand.

"So which is it? Cameron threatening you with a large pole or your guilty conscience?"

Wilson didn't have to say a word to let him know he was right and which of the choices applied. Sometimes he hated his specialty for all the cruelty of the disease he held witness to every day—like having to issue a diagnosis of "terminal" to a fourteen-year-old girl, one who refused to open up, one who broke down after he left only to build herself up again when he returned. He was her doctor—he had to relate, he had to relate. Somehow. Somehow he'd seen the logo on an old weathered book in her knapsack. Sometimes, when he went to these great lengths after hours to bandage that piece of him, he wished he could grasp, even for a moment, House's infallible objectivity.

Finally he met the older man's gaze, which had never wavered during the silence. "Are you waiting for me to suggest that we go out and get drunk? Cuddy told me about the bet. What happens if you lose?"

"Six more hours of clinic duty per week for a month," he muttered. "But everybody lies. Let's go anyway." Unspoken was the addition, "You need it."

They rose to their feet in unison. "Cuddy did tell me that she's staked out Taub and Chase at your usual haunts," Wilson remarked.

Briefly House's eyes scanned the room, settling at last on the maroon enveloping the oncologist. "You got another one of those?"

Wilson feigned heart-stopping shock. "What happened to 'Snuggies are the spawn of Satan'?" Without another word, he meandered to the closet and pulled out a similar one in cobalt blue. "I always like to keep a spare. And besides, it matches your eyes," he said jokingly.

Not one second later, the Snuggie was snatched from his grip and thrown onto House's gangly form, all while he searched through the still-open closet.

"What are you—" Wilson began.

"Ah." House emerged with another cane in tow. "I wondered where this one went. Here."

Tentatively Wilson took it, not even bothering to hide the confusion romping all over his face as he watched him limp into the kitchen and commence to ransacking the place, or at least that was what it sounded like. "House…?"

"Yeah!" he called.

"What are you doing?"

He returned with two brown paper bags in his left hand, both with lopsided circles for eyes clumsily cut from the front. "Put it on." Unquestioningly the two donned the headwear, staring uneasily (Wilson) and smugly (House) at each other.

"_Now_ we're a cult!" declared House, maybe with a grin, but nobody could tell.

"All right," he sighed. "Let's go."

House took one step and turned back to Wilson expectantly.

"No, I won't tell Cuddy."

"Good."

As they stepped from the confines of the apartment and into the hallway, words could not describe how cool they felt, nor could words be invented to even try to do so. They were a cult of two: they didn't have a name and they didn't need one. Paper bags, canes, Snuggies—what else might one wear at the top of the world? Peering down from the peak of Everest, they couldn't even sense the chill. After all, that was what the Snuggies were for.

"Landlady, twelve o'clock," Wilson muttered once they were ten feet from the door.

"Watch this."

"House—"

The landlady was a smaller woman with curly white hair and a large pile of clean sheets. Even from the far distance, her wary eyes were clearly narrowing skeptically at the sight strutting so boldly down _her_ hallway.

And half of that sight was currently careening down that hallway, wildly brandishing and screaming—"RAAGH!" The sheets were soon strewn across the corridor and she was nowhere to be seen.

"Are you _insane_?" Wilson called, a laugh choked under the truly unnecessary reprimand. "Mrs. Cooke's going to give you that restraining order she's been threatening you with!"

House's Snuggie-covered arm waved the worry away like it was nothing, and now Wilson was sure of the smile beneath the bag. "She'll never know it was me!"

XXX

**I hope that wasn't too odd. And, as the disclaimer said, House's opinions on these things do not necessarily reflect my own. **

**Please review…they make me smile. **


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